Hellraiser : Sensation
by werekitty-bites
Summary: Based on the first Hellraiser movie only; it won't make sense if you take the others into acount. It's about a human's search for sensation (not in the sense of sensationalism. Just like to make that perfectly clear. Alright? Alright.).
1. Visitor

Awake. Burningly awake. I always am, now.  
  
I was born human, but many would not call me that now. Not since I started searching.  
  
Here I stand. My back to the walls, and iron in the fire before me. The hot metal was the key, the key to my next step. I had experienced everything my eyes could give me. I had seen the blazing glory of the aurora, the desolation of the deserts, and the soft soft down on a ripe peach. I had experienced everything my eyes could give me. All things they could give. All but one.  
  
I delve my hand, if you could call it a hand, into the dancing fire, and grasp the blood coloured length of metal. The tangy scent of iron, and the sickening stink of my own burning body now hangs in the air about me. I stand, grasping the poker in both hands before me, I hold it up, like a sword, like a knight - a knight would hold a sword, and thrust like so.  
  
The pain. Alas that I no longer feel the need to scream, alas that I had experienced the ultimate pain that I could inflict on myself. For this would have been glory before I had.  
  
The sound is what I will remember about this experience. Like a smith throwing his glowing work into cold water.  
  
But that was but one blow, and I have two eyes. So the iron must be raised again.  
  
"stop."  
  
The voice didn't shout. It wasn't desperate or hurried. It wasn't a request so much as a certain prediction of what was going to happen.  
  
The bloody wreck of a man turned, the sizzling poker clutched in it's hand, a smile or snarl twisted upon it's face. Whether it betrayed an emotion or was trapped forever in that expression would never be determined.  
  
The speaker breathed in, and spoke again.  
  
"There is another way".  
  
The reply snapped back, barely coherant over the background noise of wheezes and growls that accompanied the breathing.  
  
"There is not. Not. No other way. Only one way."  
  
"You are mad. But then again, aren't we all."  
  
"I am the sane one. The only sane one. I stayed awake for a long time. Long long time. Awake. Burningly. I came out the other side of the madness. Madness it caused." it sobbed.  
  
"There are people who can give you what it is you desire. But I fear your remaining eye may be required if you are to find them, they too, are sane."  
  
"Please!"  
  
The only sane one shambled across the floor, his legs, if legs they were, didn't seem to move as a human leg should. He grasped the other figure by the shoulders, and stared insanely down at the speaker, his head turned to give the eye that was left the best view.  
  
"Please, I must find them."  
  
The stranger looked cooly at the desperate figure, though the fabric covering the stranger's shoulders was turning red.  
  
"A box. You must find a puzzle box. You can find them with that."  
  
"Where"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"I have killed many."  
  
"I do not fear you..... What was it like?"  
  
"You should. Should you... Guilt is an interesting. A terrible sensation. But that extreme experience, too, is nothing anymore. Anymore. Tell me any more."  
  
"I know no more. I wish to leave now."  
  
"no."  
  
But the figure ducked out of his grip, and slipped away, followed only by an agonised howl. The cry that can only be made when the most precious thing in the world is snatched out of reach.  
  
But something fluttered after the figures retreating heels. Something white and soft. It followed them as far as it could, then exhausted fell to the floor again. A remnant of a hand spidered towards it, turning the white to red. Scrawled upon the white and red lay something as black as nothing. Symbols. A number. It was eleven digits long. 


	2. Emergence

I need that box. By the God that cursed me to this fruitless search I need that box.  
  
I was born human. Some would say I still am.  
  
Some would call me a monster.  
  
But I need to leave now. This place I have stayed in for such time. This place of my mutilation.  
  
A hood, a cloak. Something to cover the movement of my arms, of my legs. A balaclava, dark glasses, gloves. A monster like me cannot exist in normal society. Cannot be seen without a measure of shock.  
  
I need to find a box. A puzzle box of all things. I need to find the human who told me about the box, and find out who told them. I will search for as long as it takes.  
  
------------  
  
A gloved hand pulled something red and white gently out of a pocket and studied it through fathomless dark glasses, before replacing it.  
  
"A number - a phone number. I need a phone. I have to go to the surface."  
  
The head turned to study it's surroundings. The wall opposite was curved, and formed of aging brick. Everything about the place was old; built in a time before electricity. Below that wall ran rails that were virtually rusted away - in the Spring and Autumn they were almost always covered with a layer of water, but at present they were merely damp. Strange flora grew around the walls and over the rails - the kind you can only find in the perpetual blackness and damp. The circle of light spawned by the flames contained by a large metal bin glittered over the wetness on the floor. A heap of clothes and other items was strewn in a corner of the platform, along with a smashed mirror. Following the rail either way led you into a pit of inky blackness. Though the figure knew by experience that whilst one way would lead you to the open air, the other would lead you merely to a dead end. For this was a dead platform that lay below the streets of London, and many had died at it's destruction. It had seemed safe at the time. But the Thames in the power given to her by the reign of Spring had found her way into the tunnel leading to this station; and once she had claimed her territory she wouldn't be uprooted. So this section of track and this station had been abandoned long ago - like many others.  
  
The figure limped to the edge of the station and leapt onto the track, carrying with him an electric torch. He followed the rail towards the left and was swallowed up by the blackness.  
  
Left alone and untended the fire wavered uncertainly, then went out, snapping the abandoned station into nothingness - returning it to it's cadaverous slumber.  
  
The figure walked on, the sweet sound of wavelets of water moving on stone filled the musty air. The figure's shadow stalked after him, thrown into existance by the torch the figure carried. His shadow was larger than himself. As he walked a strange optical effect began to appear. A path of glittering light began to snake it's way towards him. he gradually neared it, until it shyly brushed his battered shoe, sending it shattering into a thousand dancing pieces. This section of track was covered with water, and it was a long wade to the other side. In Spring, it would have been a long swim - in bad Springs the deepest section could find itself drowned right to the roof. The figure strode into the water without hesitation, until it covered him to the waist in freezing blackness. He didn't gasp at the cold - he'd already felt the ultimate cold he could give himself too many times.  
  
He walked in this way for a time. Whether long or short could not be determined so far beneath the light, though to any normal mortal it would have felt like a cold eternity. The water deepened to his chest, forcing him to swim for a time. The cold water made his breathing horrendous, but he was strong, and well muscled - for he'd pushed his body as far as it could go for a long time once, revelling in the white hot pain of his muscles. Until that, too had held no delight any longer.  
  
Eventually, though, he was able to stand, then shortly after that the water grew shallow. He tripped many times then, as his legs were numb from the cold, and his one eye couldn't see through the ankle deep inky blackness that covered the rails. One of his falls caused the bone in his left leg to break.  
  
He didn't even wince.  
  
A sound that felt as though it had been there all the time began to make itself audible. A rushing screeching noise. The sound of the underground - as dozens of trains burrowed their way through the earth, carrying away their helpless inhabitants. THe figure followed the noise, for aeons among the twisting, turning passages, until he reached a bricked up wall. The way he'd come in - he found the hole - low down, and almost too small for a human to fit through. The figure emerged though, albeit a little bloodier, and he headed along the shining track - darting from ladder to ladder, safety to safety, until neon lights saw him.  
  
Grasping the platform edge, the figure hoisted himself up onto the crowded platform. A few people gasped - it's not often a figure wreathed entirely in black emerges from a tunnel in the underground. Particularly not one trailing blood. They cleared a path for him as he walked his tottering walk towards the escalator of Waterloo Station.  
  
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Nothing much really seems to happen in my stories does it? There really are abandoned stations though which I though was really cool. Although the one I described in this chapter doesn't exist in History you never know what went on during the war, etc. Also they often cover up failed things. Anywho. That'll do for now. I'm bored and it's getting dark and my dinners nearly ready. 


	3. Surprise

Fear? Fear. Fear is a luxury I could afford once. Something I revelled in. Like surprise. But I lost my ability to feel fear, long ago.  
  
------------------  
  
The figure, trailing drips of blood strode up the escalators. He didn't seem to move like a human. People gasped when they saw him, and backed against the edges of the escalator as far as they could go.  
  
A tourist tentavily said "Dude, are you alright?", but the figure strode past him, unheeding.  
  
As he vaulted the barriers in a raven flurry of tattered clothes the guard dropped the ticket he'd been holding and ran after the figure.  
  
"Sir!.." Said the guard in an exasperated voice as he put a hand on the figure's shoulder. His shock as he found his hand slick with blood was nothing to his shock when the figure whipped round and lashed out.  
  
The guard groaned and blinked. He was against the wall with a worried crowd surrounding him. The... creature he'd been persuing was long gone.  
  
Emerging from the subway the incredibly harsh light of the low, bright, winter sun found an eye that had been hidden below ground for years. The eye didn't even blink. All around the figure the low light shone the streets of london into a haze of magnificence to which the eye simply didn't respond. Large elegant clouds above, painted blue, gold and pink failed to arouse it's attention.  
  
It was fixed on a phone-booth.  
  
A few paces. An inhuman finger typed in the number one-zero-zero.  
  
"Operator, how can I help?"   
  
"reverse charges call seven-nine-eight-six-one-two-five-five." Replied a noise from a broken throat.  
  
"I'm sorry, can you repeat that."  
  
"reverse charges call seven-nine-eight-six-one-two-five-five." The figure tried again.  
  
"And who should I say is calling, sir?"  
  
"Someone she met at a tube station."  
  
"Okay, Sir. I'm putting you through, now."  
  
He was to meet her on London Bridge the following day. London Bridge was a short walk away. He waited there for the whole night. A lone sillhouette against the moon.  
  
-------------  
  
The woman had mousey blonde hair cropped neatly to an ordinary, femenine length. She was wearing neat femenine clothes, neat femenine shoes. But for all her ordinariness, there was something about her that created a space around her wherever she walked. And it was her face. The feature were femenine and neat. Perhaps once beatiful, until a livid scar had sullied them. But it was not her features that made her a thing to be avoided. It was the look in her eyes, the expression on her face.  
  
She was haunted. She'd experienced things a human simply shouldn't experience. And they'd scarred her through and through. She reached London Bridge and walked along it, knowing well that he'd find her. And for the first time in a long time. He'd be surprised.  
  
She felt a shadow at her shoulder, and dropped the flower that she'd been carrying as the token of her identity.  
  
And she turned.  
  
-------------- 


	4. Reunion

He looked into her eyes. Those eyes that were so changed. Those eyes that had stared trustingly up at his before they'd filled with fear.  
  
"Hello, Brother."  
  
Hoarse sobs racked his body, as for the first time in decades, he felt an emotion that he'd not felt before.  
  
Joy. A lifting of the guilt he'd forgotten how to feel. Pure relief.  
  
His face contorted with delight - both at his pleasure, and at feeling something he'd not felt before.  
  
With a trembling hand he traced a line of blood down her scar.  
  
"You lived. Dead. How did you survive? I remember your death. I thought I'd killed you." He said shakily.  
  
"I was strong, and mother lived just long enough to call an ambulance. I see the police never caught you. She called them too."  
  
"I remember the way you screamed. Heart shattering. Who'd have though my little Jenna could be so loud. I used to hear it all the time. I remember when the cat brought in a little bird, the way it looked when it died." He croaked, laughing  
  
"Did you know, your name means 'little bird', Jenna? Your body. So still. I thought it was a scar I'd bear for life. But it faded. It became dull and jaded like everything else."  
  
"Brother, I watched you trying to fight the boredom that had infected you. Do you remember before that when I said I'd give my life for you? Do you remember... after you'd killed me... me saying that I forgive you. I still do. You killed my mother, my father, you left me for dead. But I loved you even as your blade met my body. I still do."  
  
She sighed, as though tired of breathing.  
  
"These emotions." He rasped, his eyes grew a little more mad. "I must feel them again. I want that again!" Greed entered his face, and Jenna stepped back, reflexively.  
  
"Wait! I won't survive another time! Please, I have something better." She cried out, fearing the desperate sorrowful murderous gleam in his eye.  
  
Jenna held up a box. It was fairly small, but very ornate.  
  
"I watched you my brother. I knew that when I'd survived it was only a matter of time before you'd find me again. At first my search was motivated by fear. But then... by love. I gave every second of my life to you. I met people who feel like you, and I understood your sickness. It took me decades of searching. I searched every day for years. The paths I followed changing to dead ends. Every time I got so close. Then I heard the rumour of a box. THE box. The one that will open doors. The creatures - somewhere between angels and demons - through one of those doors that will show you things you couldn't even imagine - delightful pains and terrible pleasures. Then the person who had the box found me. And now, it's yours."  
  
She flushed as he seemed unaffected by her words  
  
"Don't you understand?! Here I hold a reason for you to live! A goal! Here lies everything you've wanted since you were a child."  
  
Slowly, a smile spread across his face, as he realised, that after this, he'd never need to search again. It was all here. And he'd never need to kill the last person he loved.  
  
He opened his mouth, and roared with delight. THe bestial man on top of London bridge in the middle of daylight. Dripping blood onto the pavement, waving a child's puzzlebox in the air. 


End file.
